Title: My Dark Fairytale by DBNimyel
Source: ELGANZA, INC. | AWARDS by TheCieloCommunity
Category: Romance
Mature: N (strong swearing, sexual references, sexual/physical assault, violence)
LGBTQIAP+: N
Status: Ongoing
Special note (judging): I had five books from this category, and the other judges (silksutra, Hopeless_roMINtic, Annonymouscreator) had five, five, and six books, respectively.
Score: 47/100

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*****

Rubric:
- Title: 5
- Book cover: 5
- Description (blurb): 5
- Plot & storytelling: 15
- Character development: 10
- Writing style: 10
- Grammar: 10
- Originality & creativity: 10
- Emotional impact: 10
- Pacing & structure: 5
- Accuracy (if non-fiction): 5
- Overall enjoyment & engagement: 10
Total: 100

*****

Total: 47/100

Title: 5/5
Good title. It's definitely fitting for a dark romance.

Cover: 3/5
The image is good and definitely fitting for a dark romance, but your title and your name almost look like they were added as an afterthought. They don't catch my attention, and without those, this is just a pretty picture. I think the simplest fix would be to enlarge the title and move it up to the top center of the cover, and then enlarge your name a little and move it down to the bottom left- or right-hand corner. But you may want to consider playing with font color and effects a bit, because yes, the text stands out in a plain white, but it doesn't blend well with the color scheme. Maybe a gold color? That would work well with the browns and off-whites. Just something to consider.

Blurb: 3/5
Right now, your blurb is a mixture of blurb and excerpt, and it's hard to tell where one ends and the other starts. At first glance, I thought the blurb ended after the second line, but then it's hard to tell if the last two lines are part of the blurb or part of the excerpt. I'd recommend adding a section divider between the blurb and the excerpt, just to make it clear which is which, and I'll tackle the last two lines a bit later.

But first, the actual blurb. The first sentence is structured in a way that makes the part after the comma seem like it refers to Anabella, but, of course, it's supposed to be referring to Azazel. I'd insert "a dark prince in his kingdom" right after "is," add a comma, and that fixes that. The following sentence should end in a question mark, since it's a question. In the next sentence/paragraph, I'd add a comma after "family."

Next is the excerpt. You could add a comma after "yellow," and that's that. Then we get to the next two lines, which are the problem lines. They don't quite fit the blurb, and they don't quite fit the excerpt, although they are in past tense, like the excerpt. For literal fixes, swap the comma after "Anabella" for "was" to make that a complete sentence, and the next line should end in a question mark, because it's a question.

But, as I said, those last two lines don't feel like they fit here, and just changing them to present tense and moving them up with the rest of the blurb doesn't feel right, either. I read and reread this a few times, thinking of a few different options, and then I typed it up and flipped it around a bit so I could really see it and feel what's going on. This is what I came up with, but, of course, play with it to see what you like:

He was a dark prince in his kingdom, meant to protect her. She was a young lady who just finished college and caught the eye of a prince of hell. She thought she had a family, but she is yet to find out the truth about herself. What happens when she breaks all his walls and sets his world on fire?

Who would have thought a normal girl like Anabella could quench the flames in Azazel's heart?

So, overall, the content of the blurb is good. It's not too long, and it's very mysterious, especially since you start it with pronouns instead of names. Your imagery is good, and the reader immediately gets the picture: the devil falls in love with a girl, and things get messy. Yep. That certainly catches the reader's attention and hooks them into the story.

Plot & storytelling: 3/15
I have a lot of questions.

Let me first say that this has the makings of a great plot and a great story. I know this is a first draft of an ongoing story, and if you're anything like me, you're figuring it out as you go along, so plot holes will happen. These are just things to keep in mind when you finish and go back through to edit so this can become the amazing story I know it can be.

So...I don't understand the plot. I get that she's not a human, that she's been raised by humans for protection, and that her boss is Azazel. What I don't understand is why she needed the protection. There was something about something happening when she was born? Everything is so, so fast that it's like I just get a glimpse of each plot point and bit of lore, and then it's gone, and there's no coming back to it. If you missed it, too bad. It's not repeated, it's not reinforced, and it's on to speed past the next plot point at blinding speed.

The lore needs a lot of attention. There will be a random sentence here that, oh, Azazel has his own legion, whatever they are. I still don't know. That's never explained. Nor is it explained what they do, or what happens when Azazel's eyes turn yellow, or what happens when other characters' eyes turn red. Is that Hades' color?

Why is Azazel invested in protecting Anabella? Has he been protecting her since she was born? He has no relation to her, and whatever sibling rivalry or competition for the throne or whatever with his brother is a lot more important. And I don't understand what's going on with that, either. Do these demonic beings die? Who had the throne before? Why is it vacant?

Once Anabella finds out that she's a telepath, then everybody and their sister turns out to actually be a seer or an incubus or possessed or whatever, and there's no secrecy. People who may or may not be humans are in on everything. Nobody cares who knows what. There's a formal ball full of demonic entities, but why? I don't believe they're just getting together to dance. There has to be something going on under the surface. And what about the tests they can run on people to determine if they're truly human or if they're a demon in disguise? What are these tests?

Who is this Killian guy? His name shows up a couple times, but I don't know who he is, why he's after Anabella, or what (if any) relation he has to Hades. Is he a human? A demon? I don't know. I think he's the name that comes first as an enemy to Anabella, but he's of so little importance in the story that I honestly forgot about him until he showed up again at the end of what's currently available. Hades is a much bigger deal.

What is the training Anabella has to do? It's said she's a telepath and everybody knew she was super powerful when she was born, but she never had any indication before this all happened? If she's so powerful, shouldn't she have had a random moment here or there where she heard a person's thoughts and didn't understand why that happened? And Azazel can communicate telepathically, too, so why is she so special? Does she get any other special physical powers? I wouldn't think a telepath could fight demonic entities like she does in the arena, but that scene implies she's been training to fight, too. Although it's also really confusing, because it sounds like it's a planned fight with her enemies, especially since the legion will be trying to hurt her, but then it turns out they were Azazel's legion? Why would he make her fight them?

That fight gives her multiple broken bones and lands her in the hospital, unconscious for two weeks, and then she goes back to life as usual. Does she have accelerated healing time? A human couldn't heal that quickly. She seems like she's just a human with telepathic abilities, so what makes a telepath a demonic entity? Same for her brother, the seer–who, by the way, is never even mentioned until he randomly shows up in the story. I was like, wait, she has a brother? That's sort of an important detail about her family life that should have been mentioned before, and the same with his dreams. After he shows up, and after his parents reveal to Azazel they've been faking his human tests (which shouldn't be possible, since humans can't compete with a powerful demonic entity, so he should know they were tampering with the results), then we start hearing about these dreams he's been having, but they were never mentioned before.

How on earth did her parents, who are normal humans, start working for the underworld? That's not usually the first stop for parents who can't have children of their own and look to adopt. (Although that brings up a really funny image in my mind: "Hey, honey, look at this! It says right here in the newspaper that for a limited time, it's 50% cheaper to adopt babies from Hell than from our world!")

I think a big part of clarifying all that and slowing this story down would be to add in more foreshadowing, and, again, if your writing style is like mine, you didn't plan this, so you couldn't have done that when you started. It's something you can go back and do when you finish and you go back through for editing. You kind of already do this in chapter one, when Anabella mentioned the fairytale life she's always wanted but will never have (great tie-in with the title, too). Continue that. Add in random moments when Anabella hears someone's thoughts or accidentally sends someone hers. Show her brother waking up from a crazy dream, and what he dreamed happens the next day. Have them sitting around the dinner table as a family, talking and just living a normal life until she asks an innocent question about her mother's pregnancy or something, and then her parents get really uncomfortable and change the subject. Show us a time she gets this weird feeling that someone's watching her and maybe following her. Have her get this feeling when she first sees Azazel in the lobby, like she's seen him before. All these things will build in your story to add tension and mystery, and then when we find out she's a telepath, it's a surprise, but suddenly, everything makes sense.

Same thing with her relationship with Azazel. There's no build-up. She sees him in the lobby when she's waiting for an interview, and then he turns out to be the boss interviewing her (which isn't clear, by the way, so that needs to be a bit more obvious). Then, the random meeting at the club, and he fires her the next day. And rehires her the next day. And suddenly, they're in love. What? They've barely spoken to each other. All she knows about him is he's handsome, he can literally kill people with a look, and he saved her from assault. It feels really weird when he shows up at her house and is suddenly all friendly with her dad. Anabella didn't know they knew each other. She should ask questions. Why is my former boss here? You fired me. What do you want? And then her dad talks as if he knows the guy, and she's like, wait, you know him? How do you know him?

We don't see Anabella and Azazel's relationship develop at all. Suddenly, she mentions make-out sessions and building sexual tension, but we've seen them kiss once. That's a huge leap.

Same with her descent into darkness. There is absolutely no change in her normal life beyond dating her boss and training her telepathic powers, but suddenly, she's completely open to Lilly's suggestion to kidnap and torture her own brother? That's not something a normal person would do, and it's not something she would do, either, based on what we know of her. Show her being forced to toe the line, giving in to pressure from Azazel and making small decisions to cut corners at work or ignore the person she accidentally trips instead of helping them. Show her gradually leaving a black-and-white world to a land of gray, slowly making more and more wrong or bad decisions and doing more and more evil things without regret, until deciding to kidnap and torture her brother is the logical next step for a girl who has embraced evil.

Foreshadowing and buildup for Lilly, too, please. I want hints she's not quite telling the truth, and when we find out what she's really up to, I need an explanation. Is she a normal human working for the underworld? Is she a demonic entity? What about that legion attack at her house (which is never shown, by the way)? Have her disappear and come back when it's over. What about the club (which Anabella suggested, so it doesn't make sense for her to be upset about Lilly wanting to go later)? Was her disappearance there planned? Her boyfriend needs to show up earlier in the story, too, because his appearance is just as random and surprising as Anabella's brother, and you could easily fit him into the club scene.

Build-up. Don't give it to us all at once. Lead us into it.

Descriptions, please! Just in general. There are very few descriptive details throughout, so the story is very 2D. I can't picture the characters, and I can't picture the world. Also, I didn't even know her parents' home was a mansion full of servants until they were specifically mentioned toward the end.

Character development: 1/10
I covered a lot of this above, but there's basically no character development beyond the relationship between Anabella and Azazel, and that isn't development as much as sudden changes. Show us more character interactions. Describe the body language when people talk to each other, somebody crossing their arms, somebody shaking their head, facial expressions like raising an eyebrow, frowning, smiling, smirking. Expand your dialogue. There are entire conversations that receive a single, short, vague, one-line summary. If they're important enough to tell the reader about them, they're important enough to get more attention.

And every relationship Anabella has needs attention, not just her relationship with Azazel. She must have a close relationship with her parents. Show us that. Tell us about growing up with her brother. Give us more scenes with Anabella and Lilly, showing how close they are, how deeply Anabella trusts Lilly. Have Lilly's boyfriend show up and be all lovey-dovey with her, but then he looks Anabella over and winks at her. Explore the weirdness that's going on with her landlord. Tell us more about the suggestive things he says to her and his repeated propositions. Show us him checking her out. All the little things add up to make the characters more real and relatable. 

Writing style: 5/10
I get the feeling from reading this that this is a first draft you're rushing to write whenever you get a spare moment from real life, and that's perfectly fine. Unless you're an established and famous author, that's how most of us are. Sometimes you have more time to write, and sometimes, you're just living on coffee to make it through work, school, and personal life, and you don't even have time to think about writing. It happens. That's what first drafts are for. You get your ideas out on paper or in a typed document, and you go with what you've got. Then, when you finish the first draft, you can work on editing and making it even better in those spare minutes you can get away from reality.

So, I like your writing style. It's a little bare-bones, but it's clear, I see improvement as it goes, and I can see the promise in it. You have a great story in your mind, and you're writing it as you go, and that's okay. That's what feedback is for. Other people can see things you don't, and other people may have a little more time than you do to go through and analyze what works and what doesn't. Just take that, keep it in mind, and do whatever you want with it.

I've gone into a lot of detail about things to help flesh this out and bring the story to life, but here, I'm just going to talk about more structural things, I guess? There really isn't much I noted down here. Just little things to sort of polish how the story looks.

First, you don't need the note about the book being written from Anabella's POV at the beginning. It's pretty obvious in the text. Noting Azazel's rare POV is enough whenever he gets a section.

For your flashbacks, I think working them into the story instead of having them set apart in their own sections would work better, and that goes along with foreshadowing and buildup that I talked about above. In the very first flashback, there's this awkward repetition ("My landlord had already given me so many chances." "Anabella, i've given you so many chances already."), but it's not like that anywhere else, so that's something you've already fixed on your own.

A section divider between the story and the author's notes would be nice, and, again, you do this more as you go, so you're already working on it.

There's one image, and you wrote a caption beneath it. The caption wasn't necessary, and unless you're planning on adding more images later on, I'd probably cut this one image. It just feels weird, since there are no other pictures.

In action scenes, using harder sounding words can really amp up the tension. For example, when she's assaulted, you say he "pulled my hair causing my head to go back." Just changing that to something like he "yanked my hair and snapped my head back" punches it up.

Grammar: 5/10
Grammar and spelling errors are pretty common, but they're all things that feel like you just didn't have much time (or any) to proofread before you posted the story, and that kind of goes along with the rushed writing in between life. Just using spell check in Microsoft Word or Google Docs would catch most of the spelling things, or, if you write directly in Wattpad, you can download an editing tool extension for your browser to check as you type. The one I use is the free version of ProWritingAid, and it will probably catch most of the other stuff I mention here, too.

Questions should always end in question marks. That was an issue with the blurb, too. You could use commas more frequently as well, and missed capitalizations like I and names are pretty common. There are occasional missed words, like "my" in "my morning routine." You sometimes slip into the present tense, so be careful to stick to the past tense.

With dialogue, a good general rule is to separate speakers into their own paragraphs. So, Anabella talks and shows some actions in one paragraph, and then in the next paragraph, Azazel talks and shows some actions. That makes it really easy for the reader to follow. There's no confusion about who is talking and who is doing what.

Originality & creativity: 10/10
Like I said, I don't understand everything that's going on, but I could not generate this many questions and this much feedback if this wasn't a deep, complex, unique story. Falling in love with the devil or a demon has been done, and so have battles with the underworld, but this story is entirely of your own creation, and there is so, so much creativity going on here.

Emotional impact: 1/10
This goes back to the lack of descriptive detail and character development, because this has the potential to be a very emotional, hard-hitting story. Show me what Anabella is feeling. Don't tell me. After she returns home, when she's broke, unemployed, and about to lose her apartment, show us how surprised she is to land a job she's not qualified for that's not an entry-level position. Tell us how excited she is, how she makes the snap impulse decision to go on a huge shopping spree and hit the clubs while wearing designer clothing. Show her crashing back to reality when she loses her job the next morning.

When she's scared, tell me how her heart is hammering against her chest and she's frozen in terror. Tell me about the butterflies in her stomach whenever she meets Azazel's eyes. Describe the sinking feeling in her gut when she realizes Lilly has betrayed her. All these little things are going to make that connection with the reader and really pull them into your story.

Pacing & structure: 1/5
I think I've pretty much covered this elsewhere, but the pacing is way, way too fast. Adding in descriptive detail, background info, foreshadowing, character development, etc. will all flesh it out and slow it down to a more sensible speed.

Accuracy (if non-fiction): 5/5
Free points. Yay! 🙂

Overall enjoyment & engagement: 5/10
This is tricky, because I actually get the most enjoyment and engagement from analyzing a story after I've read it. That's when I really start to notice all the author's strengths and all the potential in a story, and that gets me excited. I especially love it when I see improvement from the first chapter to the last chapter, which tells me you're pushing yourself and learning as you go. And you have a great story here. It's not as good as it could be in this form, but I see what it could be, and I hope you continue writing it and working on it, because you really have something here. So, yes, it was a fast read, and there are problems and areas for you to work on, but I'm glad I got to read this.